PT HDX with SuperMicro X8SAX MB issues

[David Sandwisch]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to upgrade my current PT HD2 with 96I/O system using this motherboard http://www.supermicro.com/products/m.../X58/X8SAX.cfm to PT HDX with an HD 8x8x8 I/O running PT 11.2 and Windows 7 64 bit professional. My old system was extremely stable under PT 10.3.8 with no issues once I disabled all the USB ports on the MB except 2. Worked great for years. Now I want to get caught up to PT 11.2 hopefully without building a new computer.

My HDX card is in slot slot 5 (small PCIe x4 slot generation 1) and my graphics card is in slot 4 (long PCIe slot x16 generation 2). The slot closest to the CPU is slot 6 (PCIe x16 gen 2) but I can't use it because my CPU heat sink is in the way.

Should the slot order matter? Is it OK that the graphics card (ATI FireProV3700) is not in the slot closest to the CPU. In my old configuration the PT HD2 cards where in slots 1 and 2 (Original PCIx slots and furthest away from the CPU. So in this build the graphics card is in a different slot order relative to the HDX card.

I installed 11.2 and it updated the HDX card firmware. DigiTest reported no problems and everything passed 100%. The card sees the I/O.

Upon playing a session PT 11.2 kept having issues with the video engine freezing and stopping playing back a complex 59.94 QT that played fine on my old system. If I change the video track's quality to best performance or draft, it plays much better but obviously not as good looking. Normal 23.976 reference movies seem to play fine at all qualities. This isn't a huge deal since I hardly do anything at 59.94.

My other and more pressing issue is that the computer won't record for very long. On average less than 10 minutes without stopping and saying there is a CPU conflict or a clock issue. (I forgot the error code but will fire it up next and report back). I am trying to record my stress test session of 32, 32bit tracks at 96k since that is way more data than I typically record. I only need 8, 24 bit 48k tracks to work stable. My old system could record 32, 32bit tracks at 96k for over 3 hours without stopping. The system usage window reports only 5% for the CPU. I have 24 gigs of ram with disk cache set to "normal", my HDX card is hardly being taxed at all.

I just can't seem to find the conflict. There shouldn't be a choke point in a data pipe.

Any ideas?

MB = Super micro X8SAX
IntelI7 960 BX80601960
Graphics = ATI FireProV3700
64 gig SSD for system
2 TB Seagate SATA 2 drive for audio/video
24 gigs of ram
Windows 7 64 bit professional

Thanks,
David

[David Sandwisch]

The error message is "AAE -9171" Audio processing could not complete due to conflicts with other CPU tasks or a potential clocking issue, verify your sync cables. If the problem persists in most cases increasing the HW buffer size will correct the issue.

I have increased the HW buffer size all the way to 2048 and it still happens. I reseated my digilink cable. No other cables are going to the I/O.

[David Sandwisch]

My computer continues to be unstable with 11.2 and HDX hardware. It now has failed some 48k recording tests with the same error message. The only test so far that has been successful repeatedly has been 8 tracks at 24 bit, 48k.

DPC latency checker does show some minor spicks in latency but nothing in the red until after PT has already stopped. I've turned off the network driver, no change. Something is just a bit unhappy and I can't for the life of me figure out what.

I plan on getting a new NVIDA graphics card since mine is from 2009. Any recommendations on which NVIDIA cards work best?

Ideas on anything? I haven't made my system with the HDX hardware stable in any configuration yet. Ironically my system with my old HD2 cards from 2003 was more stable.

Thanks,
David